Once upon a time, there were a bunch of one-celled microbes, swimming, eating, reproducing, doing all the things that a one-cell bit of life can do. Then, some time later, there were their descendants ...

Ask someone to think of an animal, and chances are they’ll come up with one of our relatives among the mammals. A few people might go further afield and mention other vertebrates, like birds and fish.

When the strange and unnatural case of Paddington Bear came to my attention, I saw it as a troubling next step in the long, entangled history of humans and animals. Long had humankind domesticated ...